2013-06-23 -37 144

Sun 23 Jun 2013 in -37,144: -37.7840435, 144.9946319 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

On the banks of the Merri Creek, next to the Merri Creek Trail, Fitzroy North.

Participants

Five separate expeditions (in order):

1. Tom W
2. John and Cam, around 3.30pm
3. Felix
4. Steve, around 10pm.
5. Tom A, Lachy and Miriam

Plans

Various emails were sent amongst us trying find a time for Tom W, Cam, Steve, Felix and Lachlan to meet up but we couldn't find a time that worked for everyone.

Expeditions

Cam

A quick detour on the way to the birthday drinks took me to the Merri Creek Trail (with the hash a total of 3km from my house). As I was trying to get my geohash app to work on my phone, I heard a bash of branches and John emerged from behind a tree looking equally confused about the gps-ing abilities of iPhones. Although I knew that John has a fellow casual geohasher, neither of us had any idea the other was going to this one. With one iPhone showing our actual co-ordinates and the other giving us the target coordinates we bravely bush-bashed our way back into the shrubbery, and after much cursing and stepping forwards/backwards and sideways along longitudinal and latitudinal planes, we reached the point we figured to be the hash (later confirmed by Felix having a photo in the exact same spot). We proceeded together on bike to the birthday drinks where we enjoyed celebratory stout.

===Felix Dance I was heading back from lunch with various family members out at South Yarra on my bike at around 4pm. Annoyingly, the puncture I'd collected from an earlier cycle tour evinced a slow leak from my front tire, so I needed to repump it every half hour. Also annoyingly, I didn't have a pump. This was okay getting from the restaurant as a petrol station across the road offered the required facilities. Riding with my brother and his girlfriend to Carlton was also okay as the tyre had only partially deflated by then. However, departing the hash-point, which was the devastated bank of Merri Creek strewn with rubbishy debris from recent floods, I found the bike unrideable. With some luck, today was the day of the Melbourne Roobaix so there were many cyclists out and about helpfully proffering pumps for my ride. This afforded me enough time/distance to arrive at the 30th birthday drinks of which the others speak. Sadly, my trip home afterwards involved many kilometres of walking.

Stevage

My route home from birthday drinks was along the Merri Creek Trail, so the hash was something like 30m out of my way. Dropped my bike, stomped off into the bushes, wandered through the mud for a few moments guided only by moonlight, and found it without difficulty. For a momemnt I peered at the mud trying to see if I could make out footprints of previous hashers, but it was slightly too dark.